AGM 2016: Why Good Leadership Matters

Good leadership is at the heart of everything we do, and leadership is an attribute that an individual possesses that causes others to believe and follow them. It is a combination of features such as character, skill, experience and knowledge that encourages others to trust in their judgement and want to be part of their vision.

Leadership must be for everyone and it is vital to involve all levels of the organisation in developing leaders and make it clear leaders are not just people who manage others.

You can be appointed as a manager, but you aren’t a leader until people choose to follow you.

What is the challenge in HMRC?

In HMRC we have a leadership challenge. We are transforming the way we serve the UK, how we bring in the money, serve our customers, and make efficiencies. For this our leaders must have a clear understanding of HMRC’s strategic direction and be able to role model excellence in leadership, engage with our people and explain the future vision and journey as it develops. We recognise that to do this we need to build our leadership capability within the organisation.

In February last year the cross government Leadership Statement was launched, which set out the civil service expectations for all its leaders. HMRC made a commitment that it would invest in building leadership capability across the Department, and ExCom commissioned OD Learning to provide a response.

Building our Future talks about how we will all play a part in shaping what HMRC will look like in the years ahead. In order to meet the future challenge, we need good leaders who are inspiring about our work and its future, confident in our engagement and who empower our people to deliver.

The Leadership Academy and Leading our Future

The Leadership Academy and Leading our Future team are working to build the Leadership Capabilities of all leaders in HMRC.

Our Leadership priority (one of our key people priorities), articulates the ambition for HMRC leaders to model our values, engage with our people and lead our transformation to deliver results.

Our challenge is to build an HMRC leadership community working in conjunction with our colleagues in Operational Delivery and the wider HR, particularly our HR Directors and HR Business Partners to address the existing challenge in terms of our engagement scores.

At the ARC conference in April 2016 we welcome the opportunity to share with you some of the Leadership learning we have on offer, which will all count towards your five days per year leadership learning commitment. We have three different choices for you: one of the Leading our Future essentials; an elective; and a continuous improvement master-class.

As the conference runs from lunchtime on Day One (April 12) to lunchtime on Day Two (April 13), we are scheduling some one-day learning and development interventions to fit round these timings. We will therefore offer Part One of each option on the morning of Day One, and Part Two on the afternoon of Day Two. Please see below for more information and timings. Whichever option you choose, you must attend both sessions.

If you choose to attend the essential or elective learning, your Civil Service Learning history will automatically be updated to show you have completed the learning; however, as ‘The Power to Engage’ master-class is internally run, you would need to update your own learning history for this in Kallidus. Details of how to do this will be provided at the end of this training.

Whichever option you choose, you will benefit from some continuous professional development, which will count towards your five days leadership learning per year.

To book on any of these options please follow the links below to the Eventbrite system:

The training offered is for those attending AGM only. Although the courses are available at other times, ARC understands the pressures on people’s time, so has taken the opportunity at this year’s AGM to provide an efficient way for members to complete the training they are required to undertake.

Accommodation for the AGM will be provided by ARC, and will be available for the night before as well, if this is required to enable you to attend the training. However, this will have to be booked and paid for individually, and then claimed back from your Line of Business. You will therefore need to have permission from your manager for this. It should be remembered, however, that the training will form part of your leadership CPD, to which HMRC has committed. Accommodation costs will also be substantially cheaper, so should represent a saving for HMRC.